Starting today, Verizon will begin rolling out the Android 2.1 update for the Motorola Droid. Only 10,000 users should receive the OTA update on the first day, but anyone can manually install it in a few simple steps.

Update: This is the official update file that is being sent out over the air. You can wait a week to get it from Verizon or you can download it from Google now and install it today. This update is only intended for the Verizon Motorola Droid.

We already know how to manually flash an update and we are only waiting on the official download link to be discovered. As soon as someone sends me the link, I will verify it works on my Droid and then share it with everyone else.

Copy the file to your microSD card and name it update.zip (newb warning: not update.zip.zip)

Power off your phone. Hold down the “X” button on the physical keyboard and power it back on to boot into recovery mode.

When you see the “/!” symbol, press volume up and the camera button to display the recovery options.

Use the d-pad to navigate to “apply sdcard:update.zip” and select it.

When you see “Install from sdcard complete”, select “reboot system now”.

…

Profit?

Having problems? Leave a comment or start a thread in our forums for help.

Taylor is the founder of Android and Me. He resides in Dallas and carries the Samsung Galaxy S 4 and HTC One as his daily devices. Ask him a question on Twitter or Google+ and he is likely to respond. | Ethics statement

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can’t wait!!! drool, is it bad that i dont even own a droid? i can’t wait to get the update to put it on my fiance’s droid so maybe she will stop complaining about it. i really hope this update fixes whatever it is shes complaining about. and she will wanna keep her phone.

she keeps saying she wants to give me her droid. but when i ask her when.. shes like why you in a hurry… i tell her its cause im still rocking the env2 with no working “ok” button or “0″. shes gonna miss her chance to ditch her droid in about 2 weeks when the incredible or desire hits verizon. cause im up for an upgrade and im certainly not taking the droid after that.

Installing it manually isn’t the same as flashing the rom and instead is just like getting it OTA, just earlier, right? I’m not sure I am adventurous enough to go too far outside of the Verizon-supported process… any long-term risk in doing it manually?

what’s the OTA mode can u explan to me plz !!
i’ve installed the android 2.3 in moy phone but i didn’t like it cuz it doesn’t work well so i dicieded to install the android 2.1 again but i can’t !! plz help me if u know a solution. thx

There is no long term effects if you follow the directions as they are layed out for you.Droiders,” DO NOT BE AFRAID TO ROOT”,many qualified Devs have compiled the needed steps for you to really enjoy your Droid or just about any Android phone for that matter. It is the same as an OTA period.That is the beauty of open source you really get to use all of your phones capabilities and your only price is following directions.All the hard work has been done for you.That said go Root and Flash your phones there is a Rom for every taste out there be free, be open be Android cause Droid Does R.F.M:)Droooiiid!

I performed the 2.0.1 update using this method, with absolutely no ill effects.

Its nothing to be scared of, everyone. The software is provided by Google/Motorola/Verizon, and the steps outlined above are not undocumented. They’re just different.

(However, using 3rd party “custom” ROMs like DroidMod, etc will violate your warranty and possibly cause weird issues, but this update isn’t 3rd party… Its the real deal.)

Think of it like upgrading your PC’s OS. You can either wait until the software updates itself, or be proactive and do the update yourself without waiting.

Now, the only catch here is that the vendor(s) are slowly rolling it out, so as to make sure there aren’t any real-world issues with the update – and to be able to correct them without causing hundreds of thousands of Droids to become unstable/unusable. Its savvy of them to do this, in my opinion.

Will this negate rooting of 2.0.1? Or will root/superuser access remain? I have to be honest, I’m unclear on the specifics of the changes rooting makes. Perhaps it’s just permission changes or adding the default user to sudoers?

Man, I’m impatient. I keep hitting refresh for that link to appear in the article!

Seriously, though, why doesn’t Verizon provide the link on the upgrade page of their site? Would it not be cheaper for the files to be downloaded from the site, rather than having to push it out to the phones and using mobile data… or is the bandwidth cost essentially the same? If it’s the same, I guess that makes sense. I don’t think Verizon wants customers upgrading manually and screwing it up.

Verizon made an announcement today that the release went out to the test users as planned and the OTA will roll out shortly… No delay in the release but they gotta make sure that the update is functional before sending it out to the masses…

I installed the official 2.1 Update on a telus Milestone (canada) and now, it’s not detecting my network…
Any way I can revert back?
I thought this was the official update and didn’t bother to backup and all that stuff…
I’m an idiot…with no patience. What are my options?

I installed it, everything went fine. I have live wallpapers and the new weather/news widget. My About screen shows Firmware 2.1-update1, build no. ESE81. Everything seems to be running smoothly, but I did NOT get any new home launcher, app drawer or home screens. I got all the other mentioned features of 2.1 but not that. Weird?

I believe the reason is because the Droid homescreen / app drawer will rotate to landscape view if the physical keyboard is extended whereas the Nexus one does not have landscape view on the homescreen or app drawer ever.

Soo… compatibility issues? Too much work/delay for something they deemed non-essential? Who knows.

So I rooted and used Droidmod (awesome by the way) I guess I will unroot tonight to prep fot the ota. anyone unrooted and updated yet? I will reroot when they get it going for the update. Anyone have any issues?

As far as I know, I did not yet get the update. I went to bed last night and my phone was fine. I didn’t look at it first thing this morning, but I went to go use it just now to dial into a work call and it’s completely dead. I’ve had it “charging” for about 10 minutes now and I’m still getting nothing. Pressing and/or holding the power button does nothing. Removing and re-inserting the battery does nothing.

I don’t have another phone to even call Verizon on and ask what’s going on, and I can’t just go to the store because I’m working, so I’m stuck until it magically comes back to life.

Also my phone is still rooted and it worked for me although I currently did not have and rom installed at the time, and I dowloaded the file straight to my phone then using a file manager I renamed and moved to the root of my sd card and installed the update by only using my phone no computer needed and everything works fine my phone is actually a little faster. So psyched

I have been desperately waiting for the update. So, I used the link above directly from my phone and it wouldn’t work. I then connected my Droid to my laptop and downloaded the update from above but clicked on save and used the location
computer–>Removable Disk F (which is my Droid). After it finished downloading, I followed the rest of the instructions. When I was done, on my phone, I went to settings->about phone->firmware version and VIOLA! It said 2.1 – update 1
YEAH!!! Haven’t gotten around all of it yet, but all my music, pics are still there, I have pinch to zoom, etc. Have to play to see what else is different, but I am psyched!!!

I just updated to 2.1 Update 1. Live wallpaper, Pinch to zoom is working. I have also called verizon. and they mentioned that, local verizon stores will upgrade phone as well, most likely same method that is described.

So, long awaited.. and.. uhm.. live wallpapers?.. and.. new gallery with pinch zoom in photos?… why did any of us even care about this update? The phones great fosho but this update really meant squat when it comes down to it..

Live wallpapers FTW! Yeah so far, this update is working perfectly on my droid; I just want to make sure: I can delete the update.zip from my sd card now that I’m done with it, right? I would think that its like how you can delete installers for programs once you’re done installing the program.

I am not noticing the new clock app from the Nexus One. Was that included with the 2.1 update? Also, is there a way to get the Nexus live wallpaper (with the multicolored light on the grey background)? Neural Network is sort of similar (red light with black background) but I kind of like the Nexus background.

I didn’t see that coming and I update the new one and am not happy with that and want go back to 2.0.1 for my communicate. I really want that 2.0.1 back until future improve. Any way to get that back?!

TOTAL droid newb here! I followed the instruction to the letter and it worked perfectly! my droid is now full of 2.1 goodness! Simple with a perfect result! Voice recognition is excellent! All apps work just as they had previously. Any ‘must have’ live wallpaper recommendations? (using starfield)

With your phone off, slide out your keyboard, and press and hold X. Power up your phone, still holding your X button, until you get a ! On your screen. Once you do, press and hold volume up, and camera button. Voila!

Tried the update, booted into recovery and when i tried to apply the update, it said installation aborted. i get an error E: failed to read footer from /sdcard/update.zip any ideas on why this would happen? never done anything like this before!

1st is: E:Can’t open /cache/recovery/command
this appears when the phone powers on in recovery mode. I select (apply sd card: update.zip) and it starts but but aborts tells me
2nd :no such file or directory also states
3rd :signature failed to verify.
4th: Installation aborted…

When I look at the file there are other files in the folders so I know the file copied to the sd card…

Worked great for me. I was scared to, but I felt confident that nothing would go wrong after reading all the comments. So far it looks like all the features are there. I do have a comment about live wallpapers…..Why isnt the Android Eye a live wallpaper? That would be nice to see as a wallpaper.

Yo… You all hear about the 2D performance regression/bug in the 2.1 update? I manually updated to 2.1 and I can’t verify the OTA update, but there seems to be a serious regression for 2D performance with 2.1 on the Droid. Personally this brings up a great deal of ire for me due to the failure of the 2.0 Android OS release on the Droid (buggy as all hell).

Why cant I get this to work?? I tried loading it on to my SD card from my computer and tried downloading the update straight to my SD card on my phone, and each time I click “apply sd card: update.zip it says…..E: failed to open….(no such file or directory)….HELP

Hello there,
I’m an American. I want to Setup an Animation Studio in India. Now i’m searching for animators. I picked India considering that it is cheaper than U.S. I wish to learn the measures for establishing a organization in India, specially an animation studio.

i recently purchased a Sony Ericsson X10 Mini and my wife keeps pestering me to load WhatsApp. But since I cannot even find a PC Companion Version of the Android Update 2.1 that isn’t corrupt, how am I going to download the app to my “brand new” phone? Frustrated